Christmas Cards 2013 (13): Red and white once more

Although Christmas is technically over, I still got some more of my Christmas cards to reveal on the blog. I've been very card-productive this year so I've given some sets of my cards as gifts to those friends of mine who don't make their own but are appreciative of hand-made creations. 

This batch of cards is, again, revolving around the Scandi theme. I used my favourite stamps and scrapbooking papers of all various brands on them (Panduro, Papermania, Martha Stewart). 

The focus here is on the scalloped edges. I love scallops. So do the baker's twine and all folksy stripes :)

The card below is an attempt at making a hand-stitched patchwork card (a perfect way to use up the scraps of pretty scrapbooking papers you don't want to chuck away) and also the christmas tree with a 3D effect made by piping a white glass painting relief paste. Sort of a "gingerbread" effect.

The papers I used for these cards is Papermania "Home for Christmas" series from last year. They are one of my favourite themed papers available on the market. Their designs are so ultimately Scandinavian and they add a lot of charm to the cards. Think, after the New Year I'm going to look for some more of these papers and have an extra supply before they disappear from sale ;)

One more card with hand stitching - I really enjoy adding this feature. It adds that extra "hand-made, rustic" decorative touch.

So what do you think, huh? :) Enjoy the rest of the weekend. x x x

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (9) & A new furry addition to the household :)

What a week and what a weekend! Each day of this week brought something new and  each was busy for me one way or the other. The weekend is just passing by. I really don't know where this time is flying. Day after day and night after night and we are already at the end of September. To be honest, I haven't done much this week - just a few cards in the evenings to add to the overall Christmas card collection So I'm showing you the two new ones :) This time a little more traditional take on Christmas cards with lots of green accents. I missed some green shades after such a long time making red and white Scandinavian ones. 

I absolutely love that lacey die cut Christmas tree (Cheery Lynn dies) and the red heat-embossed reindeer from A Muse Studio stamp set. The poinsettia on vine punched border is Martha Stewart's punch.

Little details - tags, strings, borders, charms is what I've always liked :) I'm still in love with bakers twines too. I keep seeing a lot of them on eBay and in craft shops. They add a lot to the festive charm.

And another go at Christmas greens but this time with a bit of yellow too :) The image is comes from a Noolibird stamp I bought last year and this cute folky bird in a festive wreath has always been one of my favourites in my stamp collection. 

This year another punch joined up my collection - a Woodware punch - Large Holly Leaf - how did I do without it before? I find it so useful and I just love the shapely holly leaves it punches. I feel tempted to use it on each of my cards! 

And finally, last, but not least - meet Cookie - our new addition to the household :-)))) We got her yesterday from a woman who apparently saved her life from an outdoor fire. She's full of beans and she's just trying to settle down. She's about 10 weeks old.

I just melted when I saw her photo on facebook. The white whiskers and the "milky" moustache simply captured my heart.

She's so little and so everywhere! I haven't had a little kitten at home for ages! I'm getting used to it again.

She's so sweet and she loves a lot of TLC. She is not liking our old cat Stinky though. She's very distrustful towards him and giving him lots of hissing and growling at the moment. I hope they will make friends in the end because Stinky is a real can't-be-bothered docile cat.

Linking Hand-made Monday no. 136 tonight. I'm really curious what other crafters have been up to.

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (8): Cards with washi tapes

Yay! Weekend finally! This weekend I won't be doing much, I guess. Just a bit of knitting and cross stitching. Perhaps I'll find some time to sit down to make some more cards. In the meatime I'm going to show you  some cards I used the washi tapes on. Washi tape is a relatively new product on the market. It's a type of a low-tack masking tape but as opposed to the traditional boring masking tape, washi tape is patterned and decorative and it can be used in scrap booking or applied to various surfaces like glass or plastic. I have a few of these tapes at home and thought they may look good on some Christmas Nordic cards ;) So here are my attempts at including the washi tapes in my cards :)

Mine are naturally (surprise! surprise!) Nordic-themed :) They are a bit translucent and your can layer them to get some overlapping shades :) For this card I used Himalayan Snowflake from Martha Stewart, stamps from Scandinavian Christmas set, also from Martha S. and the Norwegian star stamp comes from craftfun.pl :)

Moving away from reindeer to ... Scandinavian wreath hearts :) This lovely heart stamp is from Noolibird and it has been one of my favourites since the beginning. I wanted to create a red and white card with some green accents :) 

And finally a festive card with a mixture of red, white and turquoise. This time three snowflakes have been stamped and heat-embossed with some scalloped layers and washi tape. The snowflakes are a Noolibird brand again. I love how they come in various shapes. The Merry Christmas stamp is from Scandinavian Christmas stamp set from Martha Stewart (as mentioned above). The red paper is Scandinavian Christmas from Marianne Designs, the polka dot paper comes from the last year Hobby Craft Christmas paper set. 

And what about you? What are you up to this weekend?

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (6): Nordic Blue (1)

Nothing much to share this time. Now with the work back (back to school in my case) I'm struggling with catching up with reading your blogs and writing mine. Definitely less time now for faffing around on the internet ;)

I'm still on building up my Christmas cards collection. Been experimenting with some cold frosty colours. This time it's a cool Nordic blue look :) These cards are mostly about punching, stamping and glueing. Nothing more than that. Simple is how I like it. I used Martha Stewart Himalayan Snowflake punch for the card below. The backing papers come from a card pack - a freebie to a card making magazine from the past. 

The Noel and reindeer stamp and the other little stamps come from A Muse Studio and the stamped snowflake border comes from a Scandinavian set of stamps by Martha Stewart. The punched floral border is Poinsettia on vine MS punch. 

Now, I can finally put to use my entire collection of Nordic-looking stamps I've been collecting for months :))) Yay!

Off to make some more cards now. Working on some Vintage Scandinavian this time :)

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (4): Nordic Kids (2)

Hi everyone. My Christmas card making is going very well at the moment and I'm staying Scandi-tuned all the time as you can probably tell it by my posts ;) It's great fun coming up with all sorts of layouts for cards in a Scandi-style. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. So here are two more Scandinavian kiddies on my Christmas cards ;) 

For these cards I used Scandinavian Christmas papers from Marianne's Designs and this time I used a cute whimsical stamp set from Basic Grey - Snow Baby Bitsy- Eskimo kisses Christmas featuring two sweet kiddies in Eskimo coats <3. The Nordic mitten stamps are from a Polish online shop: craftfun.pl. 

The punched snowflakes are from Martha Stewart punch: Himalayan Snowflake.

To be continued... :)

Have a good weekend xX x

Dala Madness

I have definitely fallen in love with all my new Dala Horse stamps. I had to have a go at them straight away and here are some of my first cards where my liking for Scandinavian folklore is coming to life :) I've made quite a few of them and today is the first portion of Dalas for you :) For a start I limited myself to the three basic colours Scandinavian graphics often comes in - red, white and blue. I kept it deliberately simple focusing on the design to be as much Scandinavian as possible.

The Dala stamps featured on my cards are from noolibird.com and they should be soon on sale. Keep checking the shop. The small Norwegian star stamp comes from a Polish scrapbooking shop craftfun.pl. I also used Martha Stewart's punches and a leafy border from a Scandinavian stamp set.

All 3 together:

And a cherry on a Dala cake: my first ever Dala mug:

Pretty print, isnt it? And I love the colours too. This mug has been designed by Sarah Edmonds and you can find it here.

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (1)

Yes, I'm one of those crafters who follow the voice of their heart when it comes down to crafting. Basically I hate deadlines and I like to create whatever takes my fancy. As long as I enjoy it, it's great. Out of season crafting is perfectly normal for me - stitching Christmas cross stitch cards in the middle of July is fine for me. Knitting Christmas balls around Easter is ok too and so is making Easter stuff right after the New Year :) And since I enjoy making Christmas stuff a lot, so today, well... it's time to show my first Christmas cards this year. I've made 7 so far and showing the first 4 :)

With so many new craft toys for Christmas at home like stamps, punches and dies, I just couldn't simply wait any longer and had to have a go at them. :) As every year, I plan to make over 20 Christmas cards to send out to family and friends. This year my beloved Scandi-theme continues as usual with an added feel of knitted coziness in a form of backing papers and stamps featuring the trendy knitted pattern. Doily and cross stitch motifs are so in these days and they will be showing up in my cards as well. Naturally,  there will be lots of red, white, cream, green and brown :)

Below, the Himalayan Snowflake punch from Martha Stewart in action :)

The backing papers I used for all these cards are Marianne's Designs, series:  Eline's Warm Winter Wishes. I blogged about them earlier on - click! The heat embossed snowflake stamp comes from this A Muse Studio stamp set - click! 

Inking and embossing together - another great way to show off your stashed embossing folders

More Christmas cards coming soon! :)
Linking up and joining a blog hop tonight at Hand-made Monday!